Kettlewell looking for Staggies home comforts

Ross County co-manager Stuart Kettlewell is determined to help the Staggies rediscover their Victoria Park fear factor in the Championship this season.

County return to Dingwall for the first time in nearly a month today when they host managerless Falkirk, who sacked Paul Hartley on Monday after starting the campaign with three straight defeats.

The Staggies won just four home matches last season, with Kettlewell accepting it was more difficult for his team to generate momentum when they were facing the best sides in the country during the club’s six-year stay in the Premiership.

In the three games they have played at home in all competitions so far this term, the Staggies have a 100% record without conceding a goal, and Kettlewell feels home form will be vital to his side’s promotion prospects.

Kettlewell said: “Playing in the Premiership is so tough, where Aberdeen, Rangers and Celtic can be the three home games you have on the run.

“Everybody wants to win any game but you always try to win these games, and we had lost that bit of home form and consistency at home.

“Through a number of years, Victoria Park was always renowned as such a difficult place to come with people from other clubs mentioning the travel and the good atmosphere with our crowd.

“We have to use all these bits to our advantage and make it such a hard place to come so that nobody comes here and gets an easy ride.

“That has been another element we’ve tried to focus on. We’ve just been bursting to get back here and play.

“We don’t want that to be false hope. We want to get a level of consistency in performance sand, most importantly, make sure it is a place we pick up points as well.”

County faced a defensive shortage for last weekend’s 2-1 defeat to Morton at Cappielow, but Kettlewell is hopeful he and fellow co-manager Steven Ferguson will have more options to choose from this time around.

He added: “The two biggest concerns we have at the moment are Sean Kelly and Marcus Fraser. They’ve had issues this week.

“Other than that, we have Keith Watson and Stelios Demetriou coming back into training, and Liam Fontaine continues his recovery after playing 90 minutes on Saturday.”